Kingfisher Share News (KGF)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Wednesday.
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COMPANIES
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Barratt Developments said it plans to return around GBP950 million to shareholders over the next three years, as it more than doubled its final dividend following a strong year underpinned by recovery in the UK housing market. The capital return plan came as the housebuilder posted pretax of GBP390.6 million for the year to June 30, up from GBP192.0 million a year earlier, as revenue rose 21% to GBP3.16 billion from GBP2.60 billion. Barratt, which will drop out of the FTSE 100 on September 22, said it ramped up housing completions in response to consumer demand.
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London Stock Exchange Group said it has continued to see an "encouraging" pipeline of companies looking to raise capital on its markets, while reporting that revenue from trading in secondary markets in August increased on the same period last year. In addition, the group said that both FTSE and LCH.Clearnet performed well in August. The group said trends are "broadly unchanged" since August 22, when it priced a three-for-11 rights issue to part fund the USD2.70 billion acquisition of Frank Russell Co from Northwestern Mutual at 1,295 pence per share, raising GBP938.0 million net. The news comes ahead of a general meeting scheduled to start at 0930 BST at which shareholders will be given the chance to approve the stock exchange's deal for Frank Russell.
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Kingfisher said the head of its Castorama business in France, Veronique Laury, will take over as group chief executive before the end of the current financial year. In a statement, the company said current CEO Ian Cheshire will step down by the end of the financial year in January. The home improvement retailer's pretax profit for the 26 weeks to August 2 fell by 6.5% to GBP375 million, down from GBP401 million last year when profit was buoyed by a tax repayment related to its previous demerger of the Kesa business.
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Shares in Sports Direct International dropped after the retailer said sales grew more than 12% in the first quarter of its new financial year, but said sales were held back by England's disappointing performance in the World Cup in June.
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Meggitt said its Meggitt Training Systems subsidiary has won an additional contract to support the US Army's Targetry Systems programme at TACOM, the US Army Contracting Command based in Warren, Michigan. The new deal for the FTSE 100-listed engineering group is worth USD17.7 million over the next 12 months, bringing the total value of the programme for Meggitt to USD30.5 million.
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Liberty Global, the owner of Virgin Media and which holds a minority stake in ITV, is looking to make further investments in the UK to complement its existing UK holdings, the Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday. Jim Ryan, Liberty Global's chief strategy officer, said during a speech at a Royal Television Society conference that the group is looking to "find some portfolio investments we can use to enhance the Virgin Media acquisition". Ryan refused to be drawn on speculation regarding the possibility of Liberty increasing its stake in ITV, the Telegraph said. Liberty bought a 6.4% stake in the FTSE 100-listed broadcaster for GBP481 million earlier this year from British Sky Broadcasting Group.
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Lloyds Banking Group said Tuesday it has sold its interest in Doncaster-based homebuilder and social housing provider Keepmoat. "The sale sees us successfully exit our equity position on Keepmoat, having been a lender to the company for nearly a decade. We are also pleased that we will continue to support them with banking facilities going forward, as they look towards the next stage of their development," Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking said in a statement provided to Alliance News. Lloyds sold Keepmoat to Sun Capital and TDR Capital, two private equity groups, for an enterprise value - equity plus net debt - of about GBP400.0 million, the Financial Times reported.
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Premier Oil said that the subsea oil storage tank, jacket and topsides have been successfully installed at its Solan oil field and it will now start the offshore hook up and commissioning programme. In a statement, the company said the precise timing of first oil from the field will depend on the progress of the hook up and commissioning. Premier Oil has a 60% operator interest in the Solan field in the UK North Sea, with the rest owned by Chrysaor.
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Standard & Poor's and Markit have emerged as the final bidders in the race to buy the index business being offloaded by Barclays, a deal which could fetch more than USD1 billion, Reuters reported on Tuesday. The FTSE 100-listed bank has narrowed the bidder list to S&P Dow Jones Indices, the index provider owned by McGraw-Hill Financial Inc, and Markit, the financial information services provider, following an auction which also drew the attention of companies including MSCI Inc and Bloomberg LP, Reuters said, citing people familiar with the matter.
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Anglogold Ashanti said it will spinoff its international gold mining operations into a new company that will have its main listing in London, while the parent company will consider branching into other commodities apart from gold. The parent company also said it is contemplating raising about USD2.1 billion in a rights issue to bring down its debt.
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MARKETS
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Corporate updates are driving individual stock movements in London as the main indices remain soft, along with the pound, in the absence of fresh economic data.
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FTSE 100: up 0.2% at 6844.25
FTSE 250: down 0.2% at 15757.17
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.1% at 776.3
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The pound declined to its lowest level against the dollar since November 2013 in early trade on continued concerns about the prospect of Scottish independence and ahead of the Bank of England inflation report hearing before Parliament during the afternoon trading session.
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GBP-USD: down at USD1.6095
EUR-USD: flat at USD1.2945

GOLD: down at USD1254.18 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD99.38 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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British Prime Minister David Cameron warned the people of Scotland there would be "no second chances", eight days before they vote on whether to end more than 300 years of union with the rest of the UK. "Let no one in Scotland be in any doubt: we desperately want you to stay; we do not want this family of nations to be ripped apart," Cameron wrote in the Daily Mail. "Across England, Northern Ireland and Wales, our fear over what we stand to lose is matched only by our passion for what can be achieved if we stay together," he said.
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Asset managers, investors and pension savers are moving billions of pounds out of Scotland amid rising concerns about the financial consequences of a Yes vote in next week’s independence referendum, the Financial Times reports citing industry executives. In a further sign of nerves, “exit clauses” are being inserted into commercial property contracts in Scotland to allow buyers to scrap deals or renegotiate prices if voters opt for independence, the FT added, citing leading advisers to the sector.
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US President Barack Obama urged leaders of Congress in a meeting Tuesday to support his military efforts to target the Islamic State, the White House says. Leaders from both parties from the House of Representatives and Senate "expressed their support for efforts to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL," spokesman Josh Earnest says. Obama is to lay out his strategy for targeting the terrorist group in a speech Wednesday evening and told lawmakers that although he has the authority to act on his own, efforts would be more effective with their support.
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French industrial production rose unexpectedly in July, while manufacturing output eased from June on weak transport equipment production, data showed Wednesday. Another official report showed that payroll employment recovered in the second quarter. Industrial production grew 0.2% month-on-month in July, but slower than the 1.2% rise in June, the statistical office Insee reported. Economists had forecast a 0.5% drop for July. Meanwhile, manufacturing output dipped 0.3% as expected by economists. But the decline reversed the 1.6% increase seen in June.
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Ukraine is regrouping its troops in the country's east to improve its defences against pro-Russian separatist forces, President Petro Poroshenko said. Poroschenko told a cabinet meeting in Kiev that the move, which comes during a fragile ceasefire, was purely defensive. "This is not for assault but to safeguard the effective defence of our territory," he was quoted as saying by local news agencies. Fighting between government troops and separatist insurgents has wound down since both sides signed a truce last Friday in the Belarusian capital Minsk.
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Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 broke up in the air, probably after being hit by "a large number of high-energy objects," according to a preliminary Dutch report Tuesday on the crash. Images of the MH17 wreckage show that it was pierced from the outside in numerous places, causing the Boeing 777 to break up in flight July 17 over eastern Ukraine, the report said. The Dutch Safety Board, which is leading the international investigation, found no evidence the crash resulted from a technical problem or crew error.
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Two nuclear reactors in Japan passed new safety standards, for the first time since the nuclear disaster at Fukushima three and a half years ago. The move brings Japan closer to restarting domestic nuclear power generation after the government shut down all of its nuclear plants in the wake of the disaster, which followed an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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